My friend and part-time pro triathlete Eleanor Haresign took silver second in the World AG Triathlon Champs in London. She is 10 years younger than me so she raced in the 35 to 39 age group. Ele, a Torq-sponsored athlete, read my blog about my World Champs efforts and gave me some valuable tips (for next time?!).

Triathlon tips from Eleanor

Travel and logistics: You can’t be too thorough in my book. Call me OCD, but I had recced the bus times and all sorts of nonsense well ahead of the race. I need to control the controllables so that when you are nervous near the time, you eliminate the number things to get you worried.

Transition set up: Keep kit to a minimum and plan well ahead what you’ll take into transition. The transition area is much the same every race so you’ll repeat the same process each time. And I urge you to try contact lenses because this eliminates one more bit of kit, your glasses.

Lack of sleep: Don’t even think to expect sleep the night before. I start a week out for that. Try to achieve a great set of sleeps the previous weekend, top them up Monday to Wednesday and then for the next couple of days you can survive on very little sleep.

Wet bike course: You did a great job to stay calm and do a great bike time. The only thing you could have done better with it is to known in advance how spiky the efforts were with the dead turns and the route map. You could have practised that specifically. I even planned for an extra gel because of the way those efforts were going to take it out of me.

A tough run: I think that you found the run tough because of the bike efforts but also the extremely wet conditions. The wet will cause your upper quads and hip flexors to tie up a bit. It’s definitely harder to run fast off the bike in those conditions.

Thanks to Ele for all these great tips. I am not sure what my next goal will be but she has her sights set on top places in elite races. She’s driven, dedicated and a great athlete. I am sure we’ll see her on the podium many times in the coming years.